Season preview 1912-13: Liverpool F.C. (Lloyds Weekly News)

August 25, 1912Liverpool without Sam Hardy next season will appear strange, but those connected with the club believe that in young Kenneth Campbell they have found a worthy successor to the English International.

Hardy joined Liverpool as quite a youngster, and in a season ousted a Scots International in Ned Doig. Now Campbell has got his chance through Hardy’s transference to the Villa, and many good judges predict that in course of time he too, will be honoured with a cap. Hardy is not the only old player to depart. Jim Harrop has gone with him to Birmingham, John Macdonald has gone to Newcastle United, and other who have sought “fresh fields and pastures new” are Tom Chorlton, Tom Rogers, John McConnell, Joe Brough, and Sam Bowyer (who near the end of last season joined Bristol City), Henry Beveridge, Stanley Rowlands, Donald McDonald, and William Stuart.

How the Liverpool team has changed will be seen by the fact that no fewer than fourteen players who were with the club on Sept. 1 last year have now departed.

Liverpool have now thirty one players signed on, among them being two goalkeepers, six backs, eight half backs, and fifteen forwards. Three of the backs are newcomers, of whom, perhaps, the most promising is Frank Grayer, a youngster standing 6ft. and weighing 12st. 3lb. He hails from Southampton, and is full of promise. The others are Sam Speakman, a brother of the right winger, who has been with Colne, but hails from Prescot, and Walter Wadsworth, a finely built local, standing 5ft. 11in. and scaling 12st. 5lb. The new halves are Bob Ferguson, of Third Lanark, whose capture was one of the events of the close season, and for whom Liverpool are reputed to have paid their biggest transfer fee. If Ferguson does as well as Liverpool’s previous Scottish centre-half, Alex Raisbeck, the Anfielders will indeed, be pleased. Ferguson stands 5ft. 10½ in. and weighs 12st.

The only other newcomer to the intermediate line is Joe Dines, the Ilford amateur but the others are all capable halves, and James Scott, Ernest Peake, and Donald Mackinlay, who helped to pull the Liver through last season, will want some ousting.

As for the forwards, this is where Liverpool’s difficulty may lie. The rest of the team did well last season, and there is no reason to anticipate any falling off next season. It was in attack Liverpool failed during the last campaign, and William Lacey and Tom Gracie were secured from Everton to remedy defects in the front line. Since then Arthur Berry, the amateur International, has returned to Anfield from the Everton Club, and if he can play fairly regularly Liverpool will be well off.

Other new man in the front rank are John Tosswill, of the Queen’s Park Rangers, a tall and heavy attacker; Arthur Metcalf, another well built and keen player from Newcastle United; Henry Welfare, a local amateur centre, of the Northern Nomads; and Alex Thomson, of East Stirlingshire. The latter is a very speedy, clever, and dashing centre, if his form in practice goes for anything, and as Jack Parkinson looks like being in his old time form again, Liverpool’s attack should be all right. The one difficulty seems to be that the directors will have a problem in choosing the five who will best blend.

Much interest has been created by the announcement that Liverpool will to-morrow in a trial match play a new goalkeeper named Elisha Scott, who hails from Belfast, and is only eighteen years old. He is said to be one of the best young goalkeepers in Ireland, and is a brother of William Scott, the International, who formerly played with Everton. Liverpool are also giving a further trial to another young goalkeeper named Archie Frew.